Blood dries up, like rain, like rain
by WaltzMatildah
Summary: Post season six finale: Cristina finds out about Alex being shot and, in Meredith's absence, it all comes down to her. Written for the prompt: Sparkle pager.


**Blood dries up, like rain, like rain...**

by Waltzmatildah

* * *

Teddy shows her the scans without mentioning who they belong to, assumes incorrectly that she already knows.

_He should be dead, Cristina._

There's something in the tone of her voice. Incredulous awe. Horrified wonder.

Fear. Charcoal grey.

_He coded twice in the bus on the way here, Cristina._

She's blinking absently. Watching Teddy's lips move. Trying, mostly failing, to put the words together. She's seen Derek's scans, more than that, she's seen inside his chest. These are not Derek's scans.

_Cristina, he should be dead..._

And when it all falls into place her world goes white. Teddy is still speaking, the sound of her voice blurring in and out. Out and in. When she blinks her eyes closed she can hear, when she opens them again the warbled sounds of speaking dissolve into the floor at her feet.

She turns then. Cuts Teddy off with a harried_ 'where?'_ Doesn't wait around long enough to hear the answer.

An unfamiliar panic descends. Takes up residence low and fiery in her gut. Indecipherably uncomfortable and raw.

* * *

She pauses in his doorway. Takes in the empty chairs that flank his bed. Chairs that wait for family she knows without asking will never come.

And he wouldn't want for them to, that she also knows.

He's intubated, she can't quite bring herself to look. Makes her way to where his chart has been stashed and flips it open instead, loses herself in a welcome reprieve of numbers and acronyms.

She reads it three times. Start to finish.

Then she reads it once more.

He spiked a low grade fever an hour ago. Coded twice in the bus on the way here, that sounds vaguely familiar, coded again once in surgery.

That information is new.

Lost more blood than it should be possible for a single person to leak out.

Teddy's right.

_He should be dead._

She replaces the chart, knows she'll reach for it again before the current minute counts to sixty. Sends a silent order to whomever, _whatever_, it is that controls these things for the information contained in the crisp, white pages to be different the next time she checks.

To be not quite so dire.

She sinks into one of the perpetually empty chairs. Tells herself it's what Meredith would want her to do, if she knew, which...

Oh, God...

But her best friend has her own wounds to lick for now, and a post-it husband with a hole in his chest. So she sits and tells herself it's what Meredith would want.

Because it's easier that way.

* * *

His left hand is in her line of sight. The only part of him that she doesn't have to shift her eyes to see. There's blood under his fingernails.

His own blood, she guesses.

She hopes someone, a nurse, anyone, not her, thinks to clean it away before he wakes up.

If he wakes up.

She's a surgeon after all. And she's seen his scans. Read his chart.

_He should be dead, Cristina..._

If he wakes up.

She contemplates calling Izzie. Knows before the thought is complete that she won't. It'll be on the news. The shooting. It'll be front page headlines and running commentary on her television screen. She'll call if she still cares. And Cristina will tell her not to come.

But she knows this is a lie. Because there is an empty chair opposite her that says he's going to need all the help he can get and if Izzie does call, she'll tell her to drive all night just to fill it.

* * *

His fingers flinch. The bloodstained nails that she can't bring herself to look away from. He's not awake, not even close, but his fingers flinch and she's reached for them before she can fully comprehend what it means.

And by the time they're wrapped in hers, letting go is no longer an option.

She doesn't understand this version of herself. Can't quite fathom the parts of her that have come alive, the parts of her that have shattered into a million tiny shards, the parts of her that have shrivelled, died. It's only been nine hours since her pager beeped a message she didn't believe, and she was going to be a godmother then, and things with Owen were ending with a pathetic whimper and now, it's nine hours later, and she doesn't even recognise the sound of her own voice in her head.

An unfamiliar monologue.

She turns his wrist, flips his hand to palm up and runs her fingers over his creased skin.

She'd search out his life line if she believed in these things.

* * *

She's not one for mindless chatter. Especially not when the other person is hooked to a vent. Especially not when the other person was three minutes away from exsanguination. Especially not when the other person is Alex.

But he's conveniently mute and the chair opposite her is still echoingly vacant and she thinks she'll take this time to give him a piece of her mind.

And really? It's about time.

Ask her later and she might admit that she threatened to kick his ass. For getting shot. For almost dying on them. For growing on her to such a degree that she actually _cares_ about those things.

Ask her later and she might let it slip that she gave him permission to choose paeds, because someone has to operate on the little people and it sure as hell isn't going to be her, and he's an overgrown child anyway, so who better to relate?

Ask her later and she may even throw in that, in a fit of painful generosity she almost, _almost_, instantly regretted, she promised him the sparkle pager, gifted to her out of pity all those months and years ago. But he has to wake up first. He has to wake up now.

He has to wake up, _please_.

Ask her later and she'll deny it all 'til she's blue in the face.


End file.
